Structures of Utility

By David Stark Wilson

Vernacular architecture amidst the California landscape is captured eloquently by David Stark Wilson’s appreciative and knowledgeable eye. Using a large format view camera, Wilson has elevated... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1890771627
• ISBN13: 9781890771621
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Heyday Books
• Length: 1 Pages
• Weight: 2.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 11.3" x 11.3"

Customer Reviews

A landscape of emphatic structures

Who would have thought that abandoned grain elevators, old elevated wooden tank houses (to hold water and supply pressure to agricultural areas) and hydraulic mines from California's gold rush would produce such remarkable photos. In the hands of photographer David Wilson these ancient commercial structures take on a life of their own. Sited in the mostly flat Central Valley and slowly disappearing this visual record fortunately captures many buildings for the record. Just to have Wilson's photo book of these structures would be enough to make a purchase but I think the book goes a lot further. I think it is a very successful attempt to produce a package that works from the cover onwards. Book designer Todd Foreman has used the photos to create a sense of pace and interest as you turn over the pages, sometimes it is the use of a fifth color panel between photos on a spread or repeating one image several times on a page, butting some photos together, running some of the photos off the page edge or enlarging a section of an image. Don't think though that this sounds like an over designed photo book because it isn't. The book's basic format is of oblong images (printed in 200 dpi) untouched on the page with the more graphic treatments blending in perfectly. Include the jacket, cover, fly-leaf, title, imprint, the five caption pages at the back, paper, layout and typography have all been considered. Structures of Utility is one of those rare books that goes the extra mile for the reader. ***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.

A Rich Way of Seeing

This unusual book may actually leave readers and viewers with not only enriched visual abilities but also a broader concept of buildings and of the nature of beauty. Wilson does this by showing us pleasing patterns to be found in everyday structures. He recognizes the utility and the aesthic qualities of sheds and barns and tanks, offering photographs and texts to illustrate and explain why we, like him, find his examples so pleasing: The texture of a wall that catches light just so...the slope of a roof that blends with the landscape...the sensuous angle of a doorway. The text is crisply written and mostly jargon free--yet not oversimplified--a fitting complement to the original vision that led to these illustrations. This is a surprising and surprisingly satisying book. Hats off to Mr. Wilson.

The antidote for soulless design

Among countless books of beautiful photographs, I've found few that change the way I look at the world. What Ansel Adams did for the sights of Half Dome and El Capitan in Yosemite, David Stark Wilson has done for the lowly silo, the aging mine complex, the agricultural shed. After looking over his photos of those structures-the `structures of utility' of his title-I will never take a drive in rural America with the same old eye again. Wilson has ground a new lens for all of us that could and should impact the design of what he terms the "built environment", the spread of buildings that has become a texture on the landscape in so many areas outside of cities. Wilson makes a strong case for examining structures largely overlooked until now to rescue us from the endless expansion of tilt-up warehouses or soulless stucco cartoons. We have an incredibly rich tradition of utilitarian design, Wilson shows us, that should be drawn upon to help make the structures we build worthy of the landscapes they occupy. Every county planner, every mall designer, every architect, every student of design should own a copy of his important book.

Roughshod Symmetry

Beautifully printed, the entire book is consistent and engaging in its design. The pages alternate between large full-bleed spreads and smaller collections of photos which complement one another, or photos offset by text, all of which lead the eye nicely through the book. I appreciate how the book features just enough text to tell the story behind these photographs. The text itself is reflective and articulate, written by Wilson himself, and stops well short of becoming overbearing. Lots of room is left over for the viewer to simply meditate on the quiet and strange beauty in these utilitarian structures of the past. Not a single person is seen in any of Wilson's photograph's here, but the human imprint on and within the land is the photographs' nexus. It helps, of course, to already be interested in this stuff. But even if you've never pulled off the side of the road in the middle of nowhere to look at an ancient grain silo or collapsing sheets of rusty corrugated metal walls, the photos and accompanying text offer some engaging food for thought about where we've come from and where we're going, and what will change in between.I feel that book could have done away with a few of the photographs in order to better focus on the best of the best, but overall this is a nice comprehensive spread of Wilson's work that I know I'll come back to again and again.